Discovering New Voices – Writing About Culture 

Join Laura Cathcart Robbins, host of the popular podcast, The Only One in the Room, as she moderates an unflinching discussion about the challenges and rewards inherent in writing about culture.

• Gabriel Bump, author of Everywhere You Don’t Belong
• Anisha Bhatia, author of The Rules of Arrangement
• Carlos De Los Rios, author of Kids in Cages
• Lindsey Salatka, author of Fish Heads and Duck Skin

Meet The Speakers

Laura Cathcart Robbins is an author, freelance culture writer, and host of the popular podcast, The Only One In The Room, living in Studio City, California.  She has been active for many years as a speaker and school trustee and is credited for creating The Buckley School’s nationally recognized committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Her recent articles in Huffpo and The Temper on the subjects of race, recovery, and divorce have garnered her worldwide acclaim. She is a 2018 LA Moth StorySlam winner and currently sits on the advisory board for the San Diego Writer’s Festival and the Outliers HQ podcast Festival.  Laura is also a monthly contributor for The Tempest and a founding member of Moving Forewords, the first national memoirist collective of its kind. Find out more about her on her website, or you can look for her on Facebook, on Instagram, and follow her on Twitter.

Gabriel Bump grew up in South Shore, Chicago. He received his MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His debut novel, Everywhere You Don’t Belong, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2020 and has won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for Fiction, the Heartland Booksellers Award for Fiction, and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s First Novelist Award. Bump teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Born and brought up in Mumbai, India, Anisha Bhatia now lives in San Diego, California with her husband and their two children. She loves tea, biryani, books and beaches, not necessarily in that order. THE RULES OF ARRANGEMENT is her first book.

Carlos de los Rios has written and published six books of prose and poetry. He is also a working filmmaker who has written/produced seven acclaimed films for Academy Award-winners Lauren Bacall and Harvey Fierstein, Academy Award-nominee Elliot Gould, Emmy Award-winners Johnny Galecki, Golden Globe-nominee Hayden Panettiere as well as movie stars such as Scott Eastwood (“Texas Chainsaw 3-D”) and Josh Hutcherson (Peeta from the blockbuster hit, “The Hunger Games”). Carlos has worked on more than 20 books, 30 films and has written and or produced seven films. Carlos lectures throughout California and is a sought-after script doctor, writing coach and story consultant. Carlos’ clients include top Hollywood screenwriters and New York Times best-selling writers.

Lindsey Salatka is a mother, author, ghost-writer, and editor. Her writing has been featured on blogher.com, ewriterscoach.com, In The Loop, Shanghai Family Magazine, Urbanatomy: Shanghai, and thefeistywriter.com, where she also served as managing editor for two years. A non-fiction essay she wrote was recently chosen to be in the Shaking the Tree Anthology, volume 3. She is on the Advisory Board of the San Diego Writers Festival and served as a judge for the KidsWrite Children’s Writing Contest in 2020. Her debut novel, Fish Heads and Duck Skin, will be available in the summer of 2021. She is currently in-process on several projects including a sequel to her novel and a non-fiction collection. Most nights (both pre- and during Covid) find Lindsey curled up with her family or musing about life, love, and culture on her blog, fishheadology or on Instagram, @mywhatlovelygillsyouhave.